Beyond Understanding
by Five Lazers At Night
Summary: Twenty years have passed since the end of the Fourth Shinobi World War. Two years have passed since the Galactic Republic annexed the planet which housed the remnants of the shinobi. Drawn by the whispers that guided him throughout his life, Uzumaki Naruto reaches out for the stars.


Uzumai Naruto stood at the gates of what was once Iwagakure, his black eyes analyzing the laid back postures of the clone troopers manning the entrance. Their white armor glinted in the red glare of the setting sun, but the black finish on their strange weapons absorbed any possible reflections. His lips quirked into a smirk when they finally noticed him, and one of them approached him with a rifle held in his arms. He knew little about the weapons, but his limited experience with them showed that they posed little danger. The ones left back fondled their weapons, radiating weariness, but Naruto was not concerned that they would "shoot" him if he gave them no reason. They were understandably nervous, as what few powerful shinobi still roamed the remains of the Elemental Nations have given the Republic enough reasons to be weary of strange men wearing headbands who looked too confident for their own good. He let go of his smirk when the clone trooper stopped a fair distance away from him. It was amusing precaution, but a pointless one in any case.

"Good evening, sir," the trooper greeted him, his voice modulated by the sealed armor. Naruto marveled at the engineering feat of making such encompassing metal armor that could move at all.

"Good evening, Trooper-san, how can I help you?" Naruto said, a pleasant smile stretching his youthful features. Naruto amused him by setting the man off-balance a bit by his question. The man – or woman? – was still for a second before speaking.

"Please identify yourself and state your reason for visiting the starport," he said. Naruto considered lying before deciding it would make little difference.

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto," he said, "and I wish to find berth on a ship going off planet." The clone trooper simply nodded.

"Present your identification papers," he commanded. Naruto almost frowned at the gaining confidence in the soldier but refrained from causing trouble.

"I'm afraid I have no such papers, I am native to the planet," Naruto said. The soldier didn't seem to react, but the men behind him shifted in their place, betraying nervousness. Naruto wondered if the Republic sent the newest, unprofessional recruits to his planet.

"Then you cannot enter the port city," the soldier said. "Only citizens of the Republic and natives who received special permits from the Repblic may enter. You will have to wait until the planet is officially a part of the Republic, sir, and you are given citizenship." Naruto frowned before suddenly smiling, his black eyes glinting red for a whisper of a moment. With the red sun at his back, it looked like a trick of the light.

"Ah, the permit," and reached into his pocket. He made sure to keep his interrogator between himself and the guards further by the gate, hiding his hand when it left his pocket holding nothing. The clone trooper reached out and grabbed the nothing when Naruto offered it, before nodding and handing it back. Naruto placed absolutely nothing back into his pocket, never losing his smile which at this point held far more amusement than politeness.

"This seems to be in order," the man said. "You may enter." Naruto nodded and moved past the man, ignoring his soldiers in arms as he passed the checkpoint, entering the former village for the first time in ten years. No longer hidden behind tall stone walls, Naruto could see that much has changed. In fact, that was a severe understatement. Except for the roaring waterfalls that fell from the mountain range that bordered the large village, the place looked nothing like what it once was. Where there were once towering pillars of stone there were command towers made of strange metals that Naruto had never heard of. Where the Tsuchikage's office once seemed to stab at the sun at dawn, there was a large space meant for landing shuttles, machines far beyond Naruto's understanding. Most noticeably, to Naruto at least, instead of a bustling and suspicious shinobi populace, the roads were populated by strange humanoid creatures speaking foreign languages, most smelling of grease and the others of sex and hallucinogenic fauna.

Naruto took a turn a right turn, his feet making no noise despite the harsh metallic surface. He had to duck under a low fixture, some sort of collapsed crane that two blue men with tentacles sprouting out of their heads were screaming over, and grinned when he found what he was looking for. The scent of alcohol and the odd muffled music coming from inside told him this was the "cantina" he heard about. The man he'd found traipsing around in the forests of Fire Country proved very informative after a small bit of persuasion.

Naruto entered the place expecting anything, and was not disappointed. The music came from some sort of technological illusion on a raised stage, transparent figures of small long-nosed creatures playing flute like instruments with a hairy looking thing hitting the drums behind them. Sitting on the bar and in booths spread sporadically in the shoddily lit room were at least twenty more aliens, each of them nursing interesting drinks. Finding that he enjoyed the atmosphere, Naruto smiled as he approached the extremely strange creature tending the bar, trying to avoid striking at the think that looked like one of Orochimaru's experiments. His failed ones, at that.

Its skull was flat, stretching back and coiling down, creating a poor imitation of hair. Two black eyes locked with his own but not for long when Naruto noticed the thing's lower body in his peripheral vision. Indeed, now that Naruto was close enough he could see that instead of a pair of legs it was standing on a long serpentine tail. His eyebrow twitched at the absurdity of it all. Ten years ago such a thing would earn a swift death and immolation, and now he had to accept that stranger things out there existed, and that they too could be tending to bars instead of escaping laboratories and looking for their next meal.

"Hey," Naruto said, speaking to the bartender. He laid his hands on the table and smiled. "You know any outbound ships that might have room for one more?" He smile faded when the being just looked at him before shaking its head.

"Your Basic is decent for a native, but your accent makes it sound like you're trying to spit out your intestines," the overgrown green lizard said, and Naruto felt like shoving a Chidori through its huge target of a throat before his smile returned. He started learning Basic from a group of Republic expiditioners that visited one of his stomping ground s a year before, and did his best to learn the language he found out most of the galaxy was speaking.

"Now, that doesn't answer my questions at all, does it?" The alien shrugged.

"You _are_ native, aren't you?" Naruto nodded. "Then you'd be useless on any ship, you'll probably die trying to take a shit in anything except a hole in the ground."

"Do you treat all your customers this way, or do you actually make an effort to avoid a long , painful death?" Naruto asked, the smile not leaving his face. The creature didn't seem threatened.

"You cause any trouble here and Trix will take care of you," the alien said, and Naruto followed its eyes to a large crustacean humanoid leaning against the wall, twin pistols strapped on his waist. Naruto wondered if the creature would really pose any sort of challenge to a ninja. He guessed that a Genin could lose, if he didn't train his speed enough. "And you're not a customer until you actually buy a drink."

"Sure, no long and painful deaths, then," Naruto said. "I don't suppose you might actually want to answer my-"

"Get over here kid," a gruff voice interrupted from one of the booths.

Deciding he'd exhausted that particular source of information, Naruto moved away from the bartender who had already moved on to verbally abusing a drunkard and sat down next to the man who interrupted their conversation. Naruto smiled at how comfortable the couch was and leaned back, enjoying the cold touch of the red leather

"Ignore the Sluissi. He's pretty much the only one of them who isn't a pacifistic pussy so he gets some leeway," the man said. He reached out and shook Naruto's hand, introducting himself as Ren Draug.

"So you're looking to get out of here?" The man asked. His right eye was gone but instead of being graceful about it the man had foregone wearing an eye patch, and exposed the disgusting eye cavity for all to see.

"Yeah, I want to see the world, eh, galaxy a bit, you know?" The man nodded, before resting his chin on his hands. He gave Naruto a sharp gaze with his remaining eye. Naruto, veteran shinobi that he was, did not wilt under the state, even with the added effect of the missing eye.

"You're one of the ninjas I keep hearing about?" The man asked, mangling the word for "ninja" in Naruto's language. Naruto just grinned.

"The best," he said, and the man laughed.

"Can you back that arrogance, kid? You don't look a day over twenty." Naruto's grin turned into an enigmatic smile.

"I age gracefully, one of the advantages of being the best," he said. "You're looking for some muscle?" The man nodded, his face twisting into a frown.

"You mind doing some less than savory work, kid?" Naruto gave the man the "who do you think you're talking to" look.

"I'm a goddamn ninja, it's in my job description." The man gave a feral grin.

"Assassins, I hear."

"Traditionally. I'm more of a heavy hitter. What kind of work are we talking here? Some things I won't do no matter you're offering," Naruto said, frowning at the fact that most of those he had been forced to do anyway in the past war.

"I'm a smuggler, not some raping and pillaging Mandalorian," he said. Naruto chuckled, even if he had no idea what a Mandalorian was supposed to be. "I've got a client here that wants to get some goods to Nar Shadaa, but I don't trust the bastard one bit and whoever's waiting on Nar Shadaa is probably a worse bastard, which means I need someone to watch my back." Naruto nodded at this, finding the deal more than reasonable. He'd be risking getting in trouble with the Republic, but he was sure he'd be getting into trouble anyway. His specific skill set limited his options after all.

"Sounds good so far," Naruto said, before frowning when he noticed a plot hole. "Why the sudden need though? How'd you make it so far without getting someone else by now?"

"Had one. The drunk went and pissed off a trooper and got himself shot. The idiot was useless anyway, I need someone reliable." He eyed Naruto, spotting a few of the more visible weapons in his outfit. "So you up for it?" Naruto made a show of considering before shooting the man a lazy thumbs up.

"Yeah, I'll stick with you till that Nar Shadaa place, and we'll cross that bridge when we get there."

"Done deal," Ren said, and they shook hands again just as a pair of aliens entered the cantina. Naruto got a good look at them when they approached the bar, and smirked at their appearance. They looked like some next stage of Aburame evolution.

"See those Kubaz kid?" Ren said, his eyes fixed on the pair. Naruto grunted an affirmative. "Time to prove your money's worth, these shits are here to get me to back off the shipment."

"They want to smuggle it out themselves?" Naruto asked quietly. He saw Ren nodding in his peripheral vision. "So what do we do? I don't really know what the normal approach is out there. Do we kill them, scare them off, what?"

"You're a bloodthirsty kid, aren't you?" The smuggler asked. Naruto just frowned at him.

"Cut the kid crap, I'm probably older than you." Ren barked out a laugh.

"No one ages that gracefully."

"I turn forty next month," Naruto said, as if he wasn't saying something ridiculous. Ren stopped fixating on the approaching pair of Kubaz and just stared at Naruto.

"You're serious?" Naruto nodded. "What'd they put in your water here and where do I get it?" This time Naruto was laughing.

"It isn't worth it, trust me," Naruto said, and ended the conversation by turning to face the newcomers. The two snot nosed aliens, in a non metaphorical sense, were standing next to them, politely waiting for their conversation to be over.

"A pleasant evening to you," the right one said, his voice nasal.

"Evening," Naruto responded, a cheerful smile on his face,

"I am Dhuk," the left one said.

"I am Thrak," the right one followed.

"We would like to invite you to an ambush, taking place in the alley two structures away from this establishment," Dhuk said, sounding much like Thrak. Naruto smirked at what he considered excellent dry humor or amazing incompetence.

"We would love to attend," Naruto said, ignoring Ren's glare. "When is this ambush taking place?" The left one nodded, while the right one kept his eyes on Ren.

"It would be our pleasure to escort you at this moment, lest we be late," Dhuk said. He sounded glad that Naruto took up their invitation.

"Lead the way then," Naruto said, standing up.

"It would be our pleasure," Thrak said. The threesome waited for Ren to rise as well, but the man was just sitting looking at Naruto.

"Are you an idiot, kid?" Naruto frowned at the man.

"I told you to cut the kid crap," Naruto said.

"You sure as hell act like one. You really want us to follow these shits into a setup?" At this Naruto smiled.

"Why not? They asked so nicely. Besides, I assure you it'll be perfectly safe. After all," he paused for dramatic effect, "you hired the best." Ren shot him one last baleful look before consenting and joining the group. They left the cantina, setting a quick pace as they headed for the – Naruto chuckled – ambush point. While walking there, a tall man brushed against Naruto, but Naruto ignored him and continued after the duo, Ren at their heels.

"He pick your pockets?" Ren asked, oddly nonchalant about the situation despite his earlier reservations.

"Not exactly," Naruto said, smirking. They finally reached an appropriately narrow and dark alley and walked a bit further in, before Dhuk and Thrak stopped and turned to face them.

"Thank you for your coöperation," Dhuk said. Besides him, the second Kubaz nodded in agreement.

"The ambush will take place now." The foursome waited in silence for a moment, Naruto smiling cheerfully while Ren was fondling a sidearm.

"You're not even going to draw a weapon?" Ren asked, sounding disgruntled. "Shit, I should have just gotten a merc and been done with it." Naruto waved him off.

"Relax, nothing's gonna happen. I've got this covered."

"Any minute now, the ambush will take place," Dhuk said, interrupting their conversation. A few more seconds passed.

"If you could but spare us a few more moments," Thrak said, and the seconds went by.

"It appears there has been a delay in the ambush," Dhuk said, his strange insect like face scrunching in thought. Naruto finally had enough.

"Yeah, there won't be an ambush here any time soon," Naruto said, and a thumping sound behind the Kubaz alerted the other three people in the alley to the body landing on the ground in a heap. A man with a rifle stapped on his back was lying motionless, having been dropped from the roof of the nearby building. The two Kubaz did not seem overly concerned.

"Huh," Ren said, looking at the corpse.

"It is unfortunate that our crewmate perished," Dhuk said.

"We will lament his loss," Thrak said. They both fixed their creepy red eyes on Naruto.

"If you attack us, our dear friend whom you have not killed will trigger a detonation in this alley, which will surely amount to your death," Dhuk said.

"Indeed, your reaction was remarkable, but limited in your lack of information. We will not depart from this alley while you will remain here," Thrak said.

"This is retarded," Naruto said. "Why would we let you actually leave when you're trapped in the same blast zone? You just put yourself in a hostage situation. Either your boss is as dumb as you or he designed this entire thing to lose his dead weight." The two Kubaz were silent, probably contemplating Naruto's words.

"We're still standing in a blast zone, we need to get out of here before whoever they got looking in on us gets trigger happy," Ren said, scanning the alley for escape routes. Naruto just shook his head.

"Relax, they might be dumb as all hell but I'm not." He removed a mechanical device from his pocket, which Ren gaped at. "I got this thing off the guy watching us a few blocks away. It's apparently the detonator for the notes they put here," Naruto said.

"Notes?" Ren asked. He was taking the volatile situation well, Naruto noted. He was glad he made a right choice in captains for his trip.

"Sorry. Mine, I think it's called?" Ren nodded.

"That's the word," he said. "Looks like you're not full of shit after all."

"We are in your debt," Dhuk said, interrupting them again.

"Truly, we are grateful," Thrak said."

"For sparing our lives, you are worthy of the highest honor," Dhuk said, and Naruto once more wondered how much of their performance was incompetence and how much was incredibly dry humor. He guessed that it was mostly incompetence.

"We will leave now, your humble servants in a metaphorical sense," Thrak said, and the two turned to go. Naruto just shook his head at the retreating figures.

"Should I kill them? You didn't answer my question earlier."

"Not worth it," Ren said, and Naruto agreed. Ren looked over at the crumpled body on the ground. "So you killed this guy and a second watcher, and somehow got the detonator off one of them? While walking right next to me? What the fuck?" Naruto just smirked at him.

"Ninja stuff, don't worry. You do the smuggling and I'll handle the _ambushes_." Ren opened his mouth to speak, probably to stick to his line of questioning, but Naruto's amused but imposing stare made him shut it back.

"Fine, do your job and I won't ask too many questions. Smuggler's code. Avoid killing though, it causes more trouble than it's worth."

"Good," Naruto said, glad he won't have to choose between explaining about his abilities and creating a rift with the smuggler. "You want to dispose of the bodies?"

"No, let the troopers find them, they won't care about a bunch of dead crooks." Naruto shrugged but consented. It wasn't his usual method but he had a commander/client now, which meant following his rules when plausible. "Let's go, we need to meet the client and get the hell out of this shithole."

Naruto felt that he should be angry at the man for insulting his home, but the truth was that after the Fourth Shinobi War the Elemental Nations did become a shithole. Even the civilian side was hit hard when crops died and mines collapsed during the last days of the war when everything went to hell.

He and Ren walked half way across the small port town that was once Iwagakure until they found what looked like an old warehouse, which was strange in a place that existed for all of two years. The place reeked of the same drugs Naruto smelled all over town, though here the smell was intermingled with urine and sex. A horned man was fondling a woman with a tail just out of hearing range, and Naruto smirked when he saw her sneak a wallet out of the alien's pocket.

"This place is disgusting," Naruto said, and Ren agreed with his own disgruntled snort. They waited a bit before a creature approached them from across the street. It was dark by then, and Naruto heard the strange footsteps long before he saw the thing. He was not at all prepared for the ridiculous alien that appeared. It was walking on a pair of hands, with another pair dangling at its sides to keep him balanced. Its second set of arms looked more like legs than the ones it was actually walking on. It had the same head as Wind Country's rare camel summons, though it had seemingly useless pieces of flesh dangling next to its nose and its ears looked like a toad's webbed feet. It also barely reached above Naruto's waist. All in all, Naruto was trying hard not to laugh in its face as it approached. Following it was the creature he'd seen playing the drums in the cantina, though this one seemed much larger in person.

"Delgago, a Dug," Ren muttered through the corner of his mouth. Naruto noticed another of the ranged light weapons strapped to the Dug's waist, and decided to take it more seriously. It was difficult, but he would not underestimate the little thing. The furry bodyguard was carrying a curved sword and a rifle on its back. It looked like a fierce warrior, but Naruto was not intimidated.

"What happened to your dumb cousin, Ren?" Delgago said coming to rest before the pair. Its shrewd eyes examined Naruto from head to toe and seemed to find him lacking. "Even he was better than this pretty boy. You sure he won't bolt the second he breaks a nail?" The grin was toothy and if Naruto was not working for Ren now it would have stopped being toothy for the rest of the Dug's life.

"Fred's dead, was never cut out for this kind of work anyway. Did us all a favor." Naruto just rolled his eyes and leaned against the warehouse door, crossing his arms. "Let's get this done quick. You have it on you?" The Dug just laughed, sounding like he was gargling spit.

"I never have anything on me. That's the only way to stay in business. It's in a blue box inside."

"And the money?" Ren asked.

"You'll get it from the buyer," Delgago said. Naruto arched his brow. If the buyer didn't pay up Ren would have wasted time and money for nothing – it sounded like a bad deal.

"Are you trying to fuck with me, you chuff sucking blinker?" Ren asked in anger. The Dug's eyes turned furious and Naruto tensed, uncrossing his arms and resting them on his hips. The creature behind them growled under its breath and its hans slipped to its blade's handle.

" Relax, Takkul," the Dug said, and the furry alien let go of its blade. Delgago spoke to Ren again, snarling. "Call me that again and we're done, Emwhulb. I just sell the shit." Ren's eyes narrowed at the insult.

"Either you're hyped up on giggle dust or you're out of your mind, I don't care. I'm not doing a run on a Dug's word."

"You don't trust me, spice jacker? I suppose the feeling's mutual." Ren turned red in the face and Naruto started worrying he might actually have to kill the couple.

"I want ten in advance," Ren said. His gun hand was twitching.

"No deal," the Dug said. "I can get Sambosio's crew to do it for three, maybe even with no advance. You're less of an idiot than him, but at least he knows his place."

"Sambosio won't be doing runs any time soon," Ren said, half smiling half snarling. The Dug's eyes widened.

"Dead?"

"No, but I definitely showed him _his place_."

"This entire melodrama is getting ridiculous," Naruto said, drawing twin glares from the "bartering" pair. His Kage Bunshin had dispelled and he had some news. "There's a patrol coming close here and you should get your little pissing contest over with before they show up." Both the professional criminals widened their eyes in alarm at the announcement before facing each other again.

"We would have settled for six, right?" Ren asked, his attitude doing a one-eighty. He sounded like he was talking to an old friend.

"Yeah, with you getting rid of Sambosio. I'll wire you the credits, get the stuff and get out of here." The Dug left as soon as he finished his words, ducking into an alley with its bodyguard not far behind. Ren muttered something under his breath before running inside the warehouse. Naruto kept watch outside, his black eyes roaming over all possible approaches to the warehouse. A cough alerted him to Ren getting out, holding a package in his arms that he put into his coat. It was small enough to fit snugly.

"This is it?" Naruto asked. It seemed a bit lackluster. Ren nodded, not stopping to acknowledge Naruto. Naruto followed him, creating a Kage Bunshin on the rooftops to make sure they didn't run straight into a patrol.

"This planet is full of the stuff but the buyer probably wants to keep the price high instead of selling in bulk." Naruto grabbed his shoulder and stopped him, before pointing left. Had they continued, they would have run straight into five troopers lounging behind some building. Naruto's clone was learning a lot more than it wanted to know about the relative attractiveness of different alien species from the soldiers chatting like high school girls.

"Why not stockpile whatever this is and sell it whenever he wants?" Naruto asked. It seemed dumb to waste an entire smuggling operation on getting out a smaller amount than possible. Ren chuckled.

"He's selling in Nar Shadaa. This guy is big, but there are bigger and nastier there and he'd get robbed before he could ever sell it all if word got out." Naruto just shrugged. He never ran a business before.

"So how are we doing this? What are we actually up against here?" Naruto asked. Ren grinned.

"You'll see," he said. "We just have to pass inspection, and I've got a trick that works every time." Naruto snorted at this.

"Those tricks tend to be the ones that fail when you need them the most," he said. Ren chuckled and shook his head.

"Don't get your knickers in a twist, I've been doing this since before you were born," he said, before looking at Naruto's smirking face. "Err, right." Naruto chuckled.

"I'm just here for the muscle, remember? You do your smuggling and I'll do the arm twisting." Naruto saw that they were approaching the cantina again. He was about to open his mouth when Ren stopped walking.

"I'm staying here the night, we'll probably be off world by noon tomorrow," he said. "Do whatever you need to get done. You got where to spend the night?" Naruto nodded, figuring he'd manage. The smuggler shook his hand and they parted, agreeing when and where to meet the next day. Ren entered the cantina with the package tucked under his arm and Naruto watching him go.

"What the fuck have I gotten myself into?" he asked no one in particular, before heading towards one of the towers managing the spacecraft docking and leaving. His form shimmered before disappearing, hidden underneath the Meisaigakure no Jutsu. Naruto was no Niidaime Tsuchikage, but it would take a skilled sensor to find him now. Concealed, he joined a group of soldiers heading to their shift change. He would treat his trip as a mission. He was in a strange, new evironment, and the first stage of every ninja mission is gathering information.

* * *

Naruto was sitting alone under a Henge on the rooftop of a docking bay, pouring over the device he'd stolen from one the clone trooper officers. The electronic datapad he held in his hands was colored standard white before Naruto wrapped it with black linen. The device was complicated in the extreme to Naruto, but careful experimentation eventually had him reading the documents stored in it with great attention. He did not have a lot of practice with reading Basic at that level, but he was slowly and surely getting used to it and expanding his knowledge of the universe at large.

The first thing he searched for when he found out he could search for information was the datapad itself. He found out that his caution proved warranted – apparently these devices could be tracked down using science beyond his current understanding. The second thing he set out to learn was the structure of the Republic, the size and power of its military forces, and knowledge about any possible enemies of the massive government that annexed his own world. That avenue of research led him to some horrifying discoveries.

The world of Chakra had nothing on technology. Even the Kyuubi, a being of unrivalled power in his world, a creature that truly _could_ topple mountains and create tsunamis with a swing of its tails, was nothing when compared to the Republic's weapons of mass destruction. Having read recent summarized accounts of military history, Naruto realized that a fleet of capital ships, metallic monstrosities larger than the Juubi could ever hope to be, could melt down his planet of birth with zero resistance. Naruto shivered at the thought.

He returned to his reading about the known Hutt crime lords when a robotic voice from behind interrupted him.

"Lie on the ground and place your hands on your head," the voice said. "You are in possession of stolen property of the Republic." Naruto turned slowly and gave the clones a bright smile. He was glad that he was under Henge, or otherwise he would have been forced to kill the soldiers cutting off his escape.

"Of course, let me just-" and he leaned back and fell down the roof, and out of the sight of the troopers. By the time they reached the edge and looked down, the only sign he had ever been there was a faint cloud of smoke rising from the ground.

* * *

The original Naruto was lounging in the back of the cantina, peering over a glowing green drink. The bartender smirked when he poured it, and Naruto was worried that after everything he'd gone through this strange liquid might be the thing that finally ended him. His face hardened in determination. The drink symbolized his coming journey; not drinking it would be admitting he wasn't ready to face an entire universe of new possibilities. Drawing on the bull-headed determination that got him through most of his earlier life, Naruto downed the shot before he could change his mind.

"Holy shit, Uzumaki," Ren said, watching Naruto as smoke billowed from Naruto's nostrils and his face became red. Naruto did his best to hold it in because he was sure that vomiting it out would hurt even more. Ren laughed at his wide-eyed frozen look, no doubt enjoying Naruto's self-inflicted torment. "That was the dumbest thing I've thing anyone do in a long time." Naruto managed to squeeze out a glare in between forcing his drink down and exhaling smoke. It took a while but eventually Naruto could breathe normally again.

"Last time," he muttered. "This is the last time I drink anything but water. What the fuck was that shit?" Ren just laughed all the louder.

"Some Hutt drink, I think," he said. "Did you just tell the Sluissi to get you anything?" Naruto nodded. "Are you an idiot or do you just hate yourself?"

"Probably both," Naruto said, before coughing up some glowing green mucous on the table. The smuggler and the ninja watched the stain as it started slithering, moving like an amoeba to the edge of the table before falling off. They continued watching in silence as it got halfway to the exit before it was stepped on by Twi'lek heading to the bar.

"What the fuck did I just drink, Ren?" Naruto asked. He had an extremely disgruntled expression on his face.

"That was just… I've never seen that happen before," Ren said, looking at the green remains on the floor with disgust. Naruto shot the Sluissi at the bar a baleful look, and started planning his retribution. "Listen," Ren said, getting Naruto's attention. "I got everything settled here, you ready to go?" Naruto, still somewhat subdued by his experience, just nodded. "Good. We need to get moving, Slett's already heating up the engines."

Naruto and Ren left the cantina, making a quick pace towards the docking bay. Naruto did not forget to make a Kage Bunshin responsible for dealing with the Sluissi. It'll think of something.

"Who's Slett?" Naruto asked at they approached the bay. It was basically a large landing pad with spacecraft spread randomly. A high-tech fence surrounded it and all entry points were guarded by clones.

"My slicer," Ren said, but didn't elaborate. They had reached one of the entry points, and were stopped by the troopers.

"Ship slip," one of them said. Ren flashed some sort of card over a scanner and it beeped green. The clone nodded and pointed to what looked to Naruto like the frame a door screwed to the ground. "Pass through the scanner." Naruto gave Ren a pointed look but the man just nodded, so Naruto watched him pass through the scanner, and then followed. Unlike Ren, who followed with little issue, Naruto caught the trooper manning the scanning device tilting his head. Just as the trooper was about to raise his hand to stop him, Naruto's eyes flashed red and his left hand blurred for a moment in a series of hand seals. The clone trooper seemed to droop in his seat, letting Naruto pass unmolested. The Genjutsu Great Hesitation incites a feeling of self doubt and deprecation in the target, and whatever the trooper thought he saw in the scan he decided that he was probably wrong, like he always was. It was Naruto's second most powerful Genjutsu, out of a very limited selection. They were useful and he dedicated some time to studying them, but even regular shinobi who didn't have the aptitude had a hard time with them, and Naruto was predisposed to be terrible at Genjutsu.

"This is it, the Drubeka," Ren said. Naruto saw the man looking at the ship with great affection. Naruto couldn't help but appreciate the ship as well, it looked impressive enough. Of course, pretty much every ship in the bay looked impressive and imposing to the shinobi. "She's a YT-2000, and I don't want to talk about how I got it." The smuggler pulled a controller out of his pocket and pressed a few buttons. A panel on the underbelly of the ship opened like a draw bridge, before it extended until it reached the ground. Naruto followed Ren up the ramp and into the ship. It seemed almost too easy to Naruto. He knew that it was likely he'd never go back.

The inside of the ship looked just like the every other structure in the port city. Cold and metallic must have been the current trend in the Galactic Republic. The ship looked old from the inside to the experienced eye – flaking paint covered the walls and the floor was scratched and worn. They entered into a small circular room, consisting of a pair of beds and a ladder. Naruto climbed up after Ren and followed him as they walked down a corridor of small rooms, each with a pair of seats and a cockpit.

"Escape pods," Ren said. "Enough to get you planet side if you're close enough, or into another ship."

"Looks vulnerable and desperate," Naruto said, examining the pods with distate.

"The only time you get in one is when you're vulnerable and desperate," Ren said.

They passed another room with some advanced machinery Naruto couldn't recognize from the little he'd read, and stopped underneath a circular hatch in the ceiling. Ren banged on it a few times, and it opened to reveal clear blue skies and a smiling face.

"Hello, Ren. The freighter is ready to launch, Ren. Who is this, Ren?" The young man spoke so fast Naruto had difficulty understanding him, and spoke in monotone. His smile was also eerily reminiscent of a certain Root shinobi's.

"Uzumaki Naruto, at your service," Naruto greeted the strange kid, who looked to be in his teens.

"Hello Naruto. My name is Slett. I can pilot the ship when Ren is not able to. I am told I have talent in slicing computers." He said this as if excusing himself for being on the ship. Ren just climbed up and patted him on the head, before looking down at Naruto.

"We're gonna lift off, choose an empty bunk and set up. It'll take us a couple of hours to get to the hyperlane so do whatever ninja do to pass the time until then. The autochef's down the corridor to the right if you need a bite."

"Sure," Naruto said, pretending to understand more than half of what the man said. "I'll go do some mysterious ninja stuff then." The hatch closed and Naruto walked back down the corridor. He explored the ship a bit until he found a bed that didn't look like it had been slept in. Sighing in relaxation, he removed his weapons and placed them in the closet along with his shoes, before lying down on the bed.

He felt cooped up, but he had been on a few sailing ships in his time and knew he would get used to it. The bed was very comfortable, at the least. The freighter began to rumble and Naruto tensed, sitting up. A high-pitched whistle grew louder and louder as Naruto's acute senses alerted him to the fact that he was rising off the ground. He couldn't help but grin in excitement. It wasn't as extravagant as he'd imagined it, but he was actually going off planet. Not finding it in himself to sleep or meditate, he channeled Chakra to his index finger and brushed it over a seal he grafted on his forearm. Concentrating on what he wanted to unseal, the datapad he had stolen from the officer appeared in his hand with a poof of smoke.

During last night he passed it from Kage Bunshin to Kage Bunshin, having them read in succession about the tracking device installed on the machine. His little tactic bore fruit, and he managed to disable it, even if he didn't understand most of what he'd done. For example, he had no idea how the HoloNet worked or how it could be used to track down the datapad, but he did manage to find out how to disable it in his device.

Opening once more the very abstract and uninformative article about Jedi and the Force, Naruto sighed again as he fought down his headache. It was a lead, in any case. He did not choose to leave his planet because of wanderlust, even if he did wish to see what lay beyond his world. He didn't leave because he tired of witnessing the crumbling Elemental Nations and the ruins of the ninja world, even if he knew it was as good a reason as any. No, Naruto left because for two years a voice had been whispering in the back of his mind that he had to go, a voice that had never led him astray before.

**A/N**

**Yeah, I have no idea why I started writing this either.**

**I try not to ask for reviews and I still won't, but for those who intended to review anyhow – please try to say what you hated about this and what you think could be better. I'm writing fanfiction as practice and the useful feedback is awesome.**


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